Bad timing: Apple launches ad for iPhone’s Do Not Disturb mode on the same day it’s hit by a bug

If you’re going to put out an ad, you’re at the very least going to want to check that the product you’re shouting about actually works properly.

You see, Apple has just launched an ad for iOS 6’s Do Not Disturb feature, which allows you to silence calls, alerts and notifications between scheduled times.

The trouble is, for many iPhone users waking up on New Year’s Day – and also January 2 – the feature is still showing as enabled (with the crescent-moon icon displayed at the top of the screen) despite being outside of the scheduled times. This means users won’t be alerted to potentially important incoming calls or announcements, depending on how they’ve configured the feature.

While Apple might argue it was simply helping us to get some extra sleep on January 1 following the likely excesses of the previous evening, it appears the bug is not going away, with some iOS users reporting the continuation of the issue into January 2 (and quite possibly beyond).

The problem came to light via posts on a number of forums, though it appears it’s not affecting all iOS users.

As for the ad, talk about bad timing. The 30-second production (below), released on January 1, features tennis stars – and sisters – Venus and Serena Williams. It involves narrator Jeff Daniels having “a really cool dream” about him playing table tennis against the pair. It’s so cool, he says, that he doesn’t want to be disturbed. Cue explanation of the Do Not Disturb feature.

Until Apple issues a fix, users of Do Not Disturb affected by the bug will have to operate it manually by jumping over to the Settings menu on their iOS device and switching it on and off there.